Sometimes I wonder…

Is life just a string of small moments of courage?

For some reason, when I think of courage, I think of someone who is seemingly fearless. The consummate go-getter.

Joan of Arc. Martin Luther King Jr. Amelia Earhart. Greta Thunberg. 

People who persist, no matter what.

They’re great role models. 

But somehow they seem larger than life. A courage so strong, so big, it’s unachievable.

They seem to have a courage that I do not have. An endless amount that pours out of them, like the lions they are.

I am not them.

But, what I do have, are small moments of courage.

Making tiny leaps that may not seem all that courageous, but it is to me.

Those times when I share a part of myself, when I am afraid of rejection.

Those times when I put myself out there, when I’m afraid of failure.

Those times when I open my heart, when I’m afraid to be seen.

I live for those small moments of courage.

I leap, and I wait.

I look to see — did I get hurt?

Whether the result is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ — there is nothing like transcending through fear by jumping straight into the belly of possible hurt.

And finding out, ‘Hey, I’m alright.” 

I leaped, and I’m alright.

⁠

In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨

I sat on a fallen tree
To rest my feet.
My hand nestled on its back
I became aware of its life.
You’re alive! I surmised.
Yes, the tree said.
But you are no longer alive
Like that tree over there
Standing tall.

I remember those days.
Growing was not easy,
the tree recalled.
I grew and grew.
Weathering storms, frost,
heat and droughts.
Still, I kept going.
That’s how you grow. 

One day, I fell over,
and my purpose was born.
Now I lay awaiting weary travelers.
Give them a place to take a rest.
I could not have come into my purpose without
Growing growing growing.
Through all the storm, frost,
heat, drought.

As time goes on
A new purpose will be born.
A place for little creatures to hide
And feast
Nourishment for soil
And the unseen.
I may transform but I am never gone.

I had no idea
The segment of a fallen tree
Could be a sage.
I thanked it
For its wisdom.
I left on my merry way
So that I may continue to grow
To become a place for weary travelers.

⁠

In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨

For the first 30-something years of my life, I didn’t think I would change my name if I got married. As an independent gal with a fairly successful career, I didn’t need a man, and I didn’t want a man to “own” me.

Marriage as Patriarchy

The concept of marriage is tinged with patriarchy — for centuries, women were married off to a man’s family to serve ‘the man’ and his family. Women had no rights and no say as to what happens in their lives, with all of their power in her husband’s hands. In some places, this patriarchy is unfortunately still rampant.

I fully recognize my luck in living in a society with changed laws and philosophies where women have the right to choose their life. Despite our modern ideals, for a long time, I struggled with feeling like I lacked power. I believe that we as women inherited this disempowerment despite changes, through old programming, patriarchal systems that still exist — micro and macro. 

Beyond this, there’s something deep within us that is the modern woman’s struggle — it’s like it’s in our DNA just by simply being born / identifying as a woman. Even in my seemingly successful career, I struggled with power dynamics with the other men in my job and in my own romantic relationships. Feeling dismissed, I fought for respect and control, wanting recognition and validation in all areas of my life.

My power is mine to give away

It was a few years ago when a huge ‘aha’ moment came as I struggled with my relationships at my male-dominated workplace. It may be true that some men do not respect me and do not want to recognize and validate me — but this desire is completely futile. I disempower myself by expecting their respect. Only I can give myself that respect, recognition and validation — and a question came up in my mind: am I respecting myself?

I am not respecting myself when I demand something that’s out of my control. If I give myself the respect I deserve, it doesn’t matter that some men aren’t willing to give it to me. By wanting their respect, I give them my power. Power can only be taken from me, if I give it away. By wanting their respect, their recognition, their validation, I hand my power over to them by allowing others to define whether I deserve respect.

Reclaiming my Feminine Power

And so, I reclaimed my power — it is around this time that I began to understand feminine power. My feminine power comes from a place of deep confidence and knowing that I deserve respect, not because of what I’ve done or some proof of my abilities — but that I deserve respect just by simply being a human being. 

 In our society, we are taught to use toxic masculine energy to get what we want — this energy causes us to be demanding and forceful. Of course no one teaches us that these methods don’t make us happy. In fact, it makes us quite miserable — only feeding the ego, which always wants more.

Feminine power is receptive and in flow. It is so powerful that it uses stillness to attract to us love and abundance. It isn’t about what we do, but our intention. The feminine is our intention, it is beyond the action, but the intention behind our action — when filled with love, the power of intention is unstoppable.

I have been living my life with this understanding for a while now, and it’s been life changing. To take back my power and reconcile the feminine within me, and how I had been denying an internal desire to embrace this flow, especially as a cis woman. 

My husband does not own me; I know it, and he knows it.

When I started dating my husband, I had a gut feeling early on that this was the man I was going to marry, and me taking his name was a natural intuitive knowing that came in as “simply it”. This knowing is rooted in the masculine / feminine dynamics that makes our relationship so juicy. (A hard-learned concept that will take more than a few sentences to explain — so I will leave that for another time.)

In taking his name, I am receiving my husband’s name. He does not own me, and he knows it, and I know it. In this open heart energy, I attracted and chose someone who would never “own” a woman in this way. Our mutual intention in having the same name is to show we are a family unit. For some people, changing their name is about tradition, but for me, it’s about our present time decision to be together and co-partners in creating a life together in interdependence.

Creating my own intention behind a tradition

It’s interesting the empowerment one can experience when we flip the lens, neutralizing what something can mean based on society’s rules and meanings for a particular tradition. For much of my life, I was anti-tradition in more ways than whether I’d take my partner’s last name. But in the last few years, I realized that most traditions are created from a good place. The root and original reason why the tradition was created in the first place was meant to be helpful. It’s the taking it to the extreme, or forcing — the lack of freedom imposed by others that covers the Light of the tradition. When anything is forced on someone, even with good intentions — the Light becomes dark.

My identity and words are temporary

In our particular relationship, I feel it in my heart and soul that when my husband gives me his name, and I receive his name, it doesn’t mean that I must give myself up — I am not losing myself, because it is up to me to lose it. In this way, a name is simply a word, it is not my true self which cannot be taken by anybody. Words are applied meanings by our human minds, and they may reflect something on this earthly plane, but ultimately, a word is simply a word. A word means nothing in spiritual realms; it is the intention that god sees.

My intention is for us to be together as a love-filled family unit on this earthly plane until we become dust — thereafter, all that’s left is the intention of love.

——–

With that said, these are my opinions, and I totally understand why you may not want to change your name in a marriage. I wanted to put this perspective out there. Choice is empowerment. And the choice is always yours!

⁠

In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨

For a decent portion of my life, I got it in my head that “complex” is better. But lately, I’m enjoying a simpler life, but I am questioning it. Is this okay? It feels like I’m ‘not doing much’ — is that alright? And it’s not like I don’t have things going on. For example, I’m engaged, trying to have a baby, writing for Jumble & Flow, etc etc, so there are things happening, but none of it is ‘complicated’ (well, maybe having the baby part). And somehow this feeling of non-complication makes me wonder — is it okay for my life to be simple? 

And it got me thinking — Why am I even pondering this, of course it’s okay for my life to be simple! The answer is of course, yes! So then the question remains, why do I fear simplicity?

Why we fear simplicity

I guess I should speak for myself. I fear simplicity because if I’m simple, it must mean I am stupid — that’s my belief at least. For much of my life, I wanted to prove that I was smart, and so when I became a marketer and analyst, I loved labeling myself as strategic on my resume. There is complexity to strategy — (of course, it doesn’t have to be) but I wanted to be strategic because I want to show that I am a complex thinker, smart and and able to be one step ahead of everyone else.

As a former marketer, strategy meant things like creating a brand or identity that your audience can relate to. Overall, not a bad thing if that is what you are, but most brands are not the audience they sell to. So, really it’s just creating a false identity as a way to manipulate others into liking you.

Sadly, this is pretty similar to how I went about many of my relationships (romantic, friendships, work etc.) — creating a false identity in order to get people to like me; I wasn’t being authentic.

I could sit here and beat myself up over that, but what’s the use? I was trying to protect myself from the pain of rejection, which we all do in our own way. 

This is how being strategic was a source of anxiety for me — I was just lying to myself and others. Lying meant having to keep up appearances, a constant charade, a created version of myself that’s not actually me. This takes a lot of energy upkeep — mentally, emotionally and physically. It’s exhausting.

Fear of being basic

I also fear and believe simplicity also means you’re boring and don’t have much going on. 😛 Currently “Ya Basic” is a trending insult the kids use nowadays, that means you’re boring and uninteresting as I understand it. (Wow, that last sentence made me feel old, lol.) 

We don’t wanna be basic, we wanna be cool, and exciting humans who appear to have lots going on. Drama means you are interesting, but drama also means complexity and emotions that bounce from one extreme emotion to another — which is not that comfortable and yet we want it. I suppose it was what we saw on TV for a long time — entertainment needs drama for it to be interesting. But really as we can see via YouTube, there’s a lot of simple “TV” that’s quite entertaining. A few days ago, I watched an ASMR video where a tortoise eats various vegetables for 10 minutes and I freakin’ loved it.

The joy of simplicity

Between COVID and some of my own life decisions, life has gotten simpler, and I love it. I love living a simple little life where I get up in the morning, make tea, do some writing, have lunch, maybe have some appointments in the afternoon, or maybe just go for a walk in nature. I end the night making dinner for me and my fiance, then sit down to play video games or Netflix on the couch. 

As a kid, I dreamed of a big city life. In college, I fantasized about working in an advertising agency expecting drama, intrigue and love triangles — I didn’t want to be simple. Even though as I worked in tech, you’d expect drama, intrigue and love triangles, but it seldom happened. There are some people where drama follows them, but honestly, drama didn’t give a crap about me. Sometimes, I would force drama to happen even though it made me anxious, and yet I went into the drama more in order to prove that I am interesting. (Which now, feels like a totally weird notion — why keep myself in that discomfort?!).

When I look back at my life, I can see how I tried to force complexity when my most natural state is simplicity. I was fighting it all my life, when simplicity was right there, ready for me to accept whenever I was ready.

Now, I can experience the joy in the simple things — that famous quote was right, who knew? I feel joy in seeing the wildflowers in the field. I feel joy in cleaning my kitchen. I feel joy playing Tetris on the Switch. I feel joy sitting on my couch and staring out the window. 

The temptation of complexity

Don’t get me wrong, the ghosts of complexity still haunt me and I’ll go into bouts of “wait, shouldn’t I be doing something more or more complex? Even in my spiritual circles, we speak about “not being small” — and I look at my life and what I do, and sometimes wonder, “should I be doing more?” Should I be planning more? Be more strategic? Create something bold? 

For some people, that is their path. To go out there and do big, bold things, but that’s just not me. “Small” is not the opposite of bold or courageous — there is quiet strength to smallness that I appreciate. If we’re hiding because we’re scared then we may be inhibiting our true selves, but there is also being “small” because that is who you are, who you’re meant to be, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

The world needs “small” because what would the world be like if everyone were big and loud? The world needs quiet. The world needs simplicity to balance all of the boldness going on in the world. The world needs people who are simply kind, or who simply tell the truth or simply love one another. 

For a long time, I hid my simplicity. I feared that others would see that I really don’t have that much going on; I’m not that interesting. I still grapple with it sometimes because we’re programmed to be more. As time goes on in my slowdown into simplicity, I feel the joy in my smallness and know that accepting my simplicity is what brings me bliss. 

Maybe later in life, I will want to go out there and do more, be more. Maybe I will have a message I need to broadcast out to the world in big bright lights. But for now, I see the beauty in being basic. I am basic, and I love it.

In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨

I saw this Rumi quote and it’s been on my mind. “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

So true. 

The first 30-something years of my life, I spent it creating walls, barricades, castle-like structures to ward myself against love, even though it’s the very thing I desired.

I’ve spent the last decade dismantling these barriers brick by brick, in order to fully embrace the love that exists in my heart for myself and others. And to open my heart wide enough to receive the love of others. It was hard work — but it was all so worth it.

Why do we create barriers to love?

We create barriers to love to protect ourselves and there’s nothing wrong with that. If you’ve had a difficult childhood, we create defense mechanisms to deal with the love we weren’t given or expected. 

Before we were born into this Earth, we were basking in the Divine’s unconditional love, and so as babies that’s what we remember. It’s quite a wake up call when we’re here on Earth getting yelled at for the smallest of injustices, eg: when we spill our milk or for not practicing the piano — not very unconditional love-like. These human constructs are created through living on Earth in an imperfect world with imperfect parents who are stressed.  As children we may think of our parents as god-like, but clearly, they are not! Even the most loving of parents have their own set of fluctuating emotions and may throw negative energies towards us, even though deep down they love us with all their hearts. 

Or perhaps your parents were abusive towards you and / or did not give you the love you deserve. They were reacting to their own unhealed pain which they have now transmitted onto you, which is not an excuse. No one has the right to abuse you. But you were clever and created coping mechanisms to survive through the abuse. How amazing you are to have done it! These defense mechanisms were built because you needed to get through it somehow. This is a kind of strength — a tenacity to overcome despite how you were treated.

As we become adults and enter into relationships, additional hurts may cause us to refine our barriers. We use the barriers created from childhood and perhaps a few more to protect ourselves from getting hurt.

How do we thwart love?

My mother had a temper growing up, and so I spent my childhood managing my mother’s anger. My mind was always wondering: what can I say, or do so that she wouldn’t be angry and avoid her wrath.

A coping mechanism and barrier I created was to be extremely accommodating. I was accommodating to everyone. My mother, my family, my partners, my friends, I accommodated them by never having an opinion or desire that may be different from theirs. 

Although on the surface, it may seem loving to always be accommodating; it’s not. When we accommodate others only, we shut down our own desires and needs, therefore shutting down our own self-love. 

When we’re accommodating, we only give, and never receive. By not receiving from others, we don’t allow others to give us their love, instead we block it from coming in. 

And as I’ve learned, love doesn’t only come from generosity, but can at times be in the form of setting boundaries. Not only are boundaries a form of self-love, it is also a medicine the other person needs in order to awaken to their own unloving behavior.

Ask yourself, how do you thwart love? Here are some ways I’ve discovered:

• Accommodating others, never yourself
• Not receiving, only giving
• Not setting boundaries
• Ultra independence 
• Not sharing our feelings, joys or sorrows
• Hiding when we have a problem
• Not getting help when we need it
• Being controlling in relationships
• Expecting perfection in others and self

In my own life, after realizing I was being a doormat, I put up lots of boundaries. I tried to control my experience in relationships and with others with expectations so high that no one could fill it. This is also a barrier to love, but on the other spectrum where the criterias and expectations are so thick, it becomes impenetrable and no love can pass through the wall we create.

This is not to say you should have no expectations or else your needs may not be met. We all have a core set of non-negotiables that is not about being defensive, but rather values that reflect our own self-love. But at times, we may become so hurt by others that nothing is good enough and we create insurmountable conditions so that no one is let in at the gates of our hearts at all.  

As you can see, barriers to love can come in many sizes and shapes. 

How do we heal our barriers?

Grieve.

First of all, allow yourself to grieve what happened. Perhaps at the time, it wasn’t safe to show emotion and you weren’t able to grieve the love you didn’t receive. As an adult, find a safe space to grieve. Perhaps it’s on your own, in your bedroom, with a box of tissues and some ice-cream. Perhaps it’s with a trusted friend, therapist or counselor. 

These barriers to love were strategies we created so that we can cope and not create more danger or abuse from others. Be gentle with yourself and know that you did what you needed to do in order to survive.

Awareness and open to love

As you heal, be aware of how these barriers show up in your life. Does someone offer you help, and you refuse? Do you find yourself hiding your emotions when they’re screaming to be heard? Are you controlling of others, setting unrealistic expectations?

When you see it, reflect on it, and change your behavior. Realize that when someone offers you help and you refuse it, you may be shutting their love from coming in. You may feel anxious or nervous, because it’s a vulnerable position to allow someone to love you. It can be incredibly difficult when we have spent our whole lives barricading ourselves from allowing others to see our vulnerability.

Give yourself permission to do this very slowly.

There’s no rush. It’s scary. But if we’re able to take one step towards opening ourselves to love — the love others want to give us and the love we want to give ourselves — we begin to see that it’s not so bad. In fact, it feels pretty darn amazing to be able to access our own love and experience love from others.

Slowly, we dismantle the walls we build for ourselves — so that we may experience the love we deserve. 

In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨

Recently, there was a misunderstanding between me and a colleague. They weren’t mean about it  — but my clairsentience could empathically sense their displeasure. In the past, my sensitivity would have made me cower. I would have felt bad, quickly bringing up scripts in my head about how I am not good enough, which would then fuel an adrenaline rush of fervor to make it right. The energy spent would no way match the size of the misunderstanding — It was an exhausting way of being.

Having let go of these debilitating old scripts, my first thought was “It’s not that important. Nothing is really that important.” My next thought was, “Whoa.” As if I was in The Matrix, my mind entered an existential black hole of nothingness. It felt disorienting, but also liberating. The black hole whispered — NOTHING MATTERS — it was amazing.

In this black hole of nothingness, I could see how we put pressure on ourselves by assigning importance to things. For a time, I thought getting promotions, going to expensive restaurants and having a “perfect life” were important. I look back at the Bonnie of my early-30s who thought the research I did at my corporate job was really important and now I wonder — Wait… What was so important about it? I think back to old bosses who’d tell me projects, deadlines and presentations were important. Now I’m perplexed by why I would have believed them. 

Of course some people do important things like provide for the impoverished or negotiate world peace. But overall, most of the things that I do are not that important, or at least not so important that one bad move means everything comes crumbling down. I suppose surviving a pandemic and a year plus of masks, vaccinations and hoarding toilet paper asks us the question — what’s really important?

In this black hole of nothingness, I see all of the anxiety that was produced trying to achieve things that I had bestowed as important. I placed a pressure on myself to live up to the expectations that I created.

Of course this expectation came from somewhere. I wasn’t born with it as an innocent little baby, asking for a raise during diaper changes. We are influenced by those around us — especially our family, teachers, friends, coworkers… (basically everyone) — as to what’s important. As babies, we didn’t have much that was important besides eating and pooping, and so, others gave us what they thought was important.

This is what’s crazy. In the black hole of nothingness, I can see how at any moment, we can re-choose. We can decide that we no longer want this pressure and stop taking it on. In this choice, there may be grieving, disappointment and anger. Old emotions may surface; after ignoring our emotions we tend to shovel it in a storage container within our bodies and try to forget about it. The feelings were trying to wake us up — what we were unwilling to feel will always be knocking on our bodily door until we get the message.

I know the idea that “Nothing matters” can sound cynical. But just for a moment, try to see it another way: “Nothing matters” is awesome. When nothing matters, we can relax a bit. We can hang our hats, put our feet up and not worry about getting things done. If it doesn’t come out perfect, it doesn’t matter… because nothing matters.

Of course, “Nothing matters” is only a half truth that we humans can only dwell in for a limited passage of time. It’s kinda like taking a ride at Epcot. It’s fun for a while, but us humans are not meant to be on a dark roller coaster for that long. 

After a while, we must leave the dark hole of nothingness and decide: What’s important to us? What do we value? It’s up to us to choose. Hint: Don’t choose the thing that gives you anxiety. Go for the thing that feels good. If you don’t know how to choose — close your eyes — Your heart will tell you. 

⁠
In gratitude, Bonnie
💜🌈🌞✨